How to Find a Freshmen Year College Roommate

So, you’ve been accepted to multiple universities, committed to your favorite, and are now facing the daunting task of residence hall living and finding your first college roommate. Do you go random? Do you stalk the Facebook page looking for your future best friend? Do you pay more for a single room to avoid awkward interactions?

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Last year, at this time, I found myself taking on the same intimidating task. College seemed absolutely exhilarating, though living with a complete stranger seemed…well just the opposite. However, one way or another, I ended up with two pretty great roommates, of whom I couldn’t imagine experiencing my freshman year without. So judging from my experience and what I’ve heard from others, here are 5 step to finding a great freshman year college roommate!

1. Decide which residence hall on campus you would like to live in.

This is something, that when applying for housing, you will most likely be asked. So rank each of the res halls from your top pick to your least favorite (aka the one without AC).

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2. Think about what you want in a college roommate and how, ideally, you would like to live.

What is your sleep schedule? How do you spend your free time? What will you spend your Friday nights doing?

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3. Join the Facebook groups for your college/university.

There are usually a couple of Facebook groups set up for your grade so why not join them all to make sure you’re not missing out.

4. Post your bio on the page.

Prospective students use this page for a multitude of activities, though the most popular is to ask questions about technicalities and to find a roommate/get to know their future classmates. If your page is anything like mine was, it will be filled with short personal bios from everyone. Some common things to mention are your major/minor, favorite entertainment, pastimes, likes and dislikes, preferred residence hall, and some sort of statement about how you are looking for a roommate and open to meeting new people. This is was my post:

5. Start networking with your future classmates.

Then if you find that you have a lot in common with someone, you should message them. (This may seem awkward at first but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.) Common first messages are along the lines of:

“Hey! I saw your post on the DePaul University FB page and we seem to have a lot in common and I think we’d get along…”
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Here is how my roommate and I began our conversation:

From there on out you just have to initiate conversation and get to know each other. If you both think you’d get along, and your college offers roommate requests, then you should request each other. However, even if you don’t request a roommate, going random can be fun and turn out better than you could have imagined. I live in a triple, so one of my college roommates I requested, but the other randomly got placed with us and we got along great!

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It is also important not to feel pressured to become best friends with your college roommate. In some cases you may not have much, or anything at all, in common with each other. And that’s fine – you’ll meet plenty of new people. You just have to be able to live in the same room. So don’t worry or stress about it, because all will turn out fine. Now you just have to survive your last semester of high school and the epidemic known as “senioritis.”